When Puzzle Pieces Fall Apart
by ScarletDrizzle
Summary: For the last 10 glorious years of their relationship, Ritsu always thought they fit perfectly together: like a lock and key... like puzzle pieces. Little did she know, the key in Mio's grasp was slowly rusting away... and the puzzle of their future had missing corners. Mitsu/AU/OOC My good-willed B-day present for Ricchan's 21st. Except...birthdays aren't always just fun and games.


**A/N: Well, it's that time of the year again… and I think we all know what Ricchan's/Mio-chan's Birthdays mean… MI-TSU EX-PLO-SION! **

**Good God, how I love this couple! And that's why this Mitsu one-shot's a gift-wrapped B-day present for my cute little Ricchan. **(Oh, did I say **my**? Surely, I meant _our_... Don't worry Mio, I don't mind sharing. ;) )

**So, with just a little further ado: HAPPY 21st**** BIRTHDAY, RITSU! Even though you're knocking on the doors of thirty in my one-shot… Oh, how fast they grow! **

**Rated T for: Limited swearing **(some uses of the F and H bombs)**; references to i #*$^ #ty **(sorry guys, that's a spoiler...)**; a few mentions of sex; Yuri **(if you don't know what that is, search it. But don't go into the pictures… _please_)**; mature themes.  
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**Warning: No Beta **(PM me if you're interested, correct my mistakes even if you're not)**, AU and somewhat OOC, slight (mostly) platonic Yuri PDA, Ritsu with bangs down **(I have to warn ya' because I don't want any deaths from spiked estrogen levels ;P )**, and a tadsies of melodrama. **

**Enjoy!**

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**When Puzzle Pieces Fall Apart ~ The First Piece**

Disclaimer: I do not own _K-On!_ or any of its characters**.****  
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"Good afternoon, Tainaka Mio-san and Ritsu-san. Please, take a seat!" The brown haired woman jovially smiled from her desk, nodding to me and my wife as she used our names. Mio responded with a smile and a cordial shake of a hand like she always did, and settled into the chair elegantly. I just glared at the name plate resting on the desk as I sat on the chair next to my wife's, nodding to the brunette as I inwardly incorporated her name into every swear I could come up with in my head. The damn smile of hers never wavered. "Well, first of all..." She leaned forward on her desk, fingers intertwining with one another and eyes glinting from behind her thin-rimmed glasses as she introduced herself courteously: Hirasawa Yui. "I'd like to congratulate you two. You've just taken the first step in solving your problems, and I much more than hope I can get you all the way there."

"We can try."

"This is ridiculous."

Inquisitive brown eyes swiftly came my way, and _Yui_'s smile faltered slightly. Well, at least I managed to get rid of that damn thing, if even for a second. "Ridiculous, you say?" The woman questioned civilly, and I could hear Mio heave a small sigh beside me, but paid it no mind. "Why is it ridiculous, Ritsu-san?" Great, we weren't even a minute into this, and she was acting like a shrink already.

"We don't need _Couple Therapy_." I all but hissed the word, hating the way it tasted coming from my lips. I still couldn't believe that I was here, that the ravenette love of my life sitting to my left had half-forced me to come to this place, telling me to "_fix this"._ Fix what? What was there to fix, Mio? Weren't you happy; weren't _we _happy? 'Cause I sure as Hell was under the impression that we were.

"Relax, Ritsu. You're tensing up." Mio whispered to me with a slight smile, taking my left hand into her right and stroking the skin softly. The anger faded the second her skin touched mine. "It'll be fine. We talked about this, remember?"

"No, _you_ talked. I just nodded my head and listened." The words almost sounded like a whine, and on most occasions would probably have elicited a small laugh from my wife. Instead, I got the "For me, honey?" card thrown at me, getting a reluctant nod from my way. Okay, fine. If Mio wanted to pretend to fix problems she was pretending existed in the first place, then so be it...

"Well, Tainaka-san." Yui interrupted my internal monologue, directing her attention to both of us. I was sure she thought herself a genius to use our last name to refer to us simultaneously. "Let's start with some simple questions, okay? Bear with me, because the first day's always the worst." The _first _day? "How long have the two of you been married, if I may ask?"

"Six years." We both chorused, exchanging surprised glances when we did. Mio finally let out her first melodious laugh of the day, immediately easing me of all my worries. "We celebrated our 6th anniversary just over a month ago." I continued with a smile, looking at my wife instead of the counselor, and imploring her with my eyes to let us leave and talk this out between the two of us. The girl just shook her head at me as though she were reading my mind, wording a sorry my way.

"And how long were you together prior to marriage?" Yui kept going, oblivious to the little bubble we'd created that drowned her words.

"Four years." Mio replied anyways, her shining grey eyes still boring into mine as she continued, "The 10th anniversary for _that _is still two weeks away." I grinned like a love-struck idiot at the loving smile she wore, and leaned out of my chair to give her a soft peck on the lips. It was fine; _we _were fine. If she still remembered trivial facts like those, then she still loved me just as much as I did her, right? She probably just wanted to check this place out, there surely wasn't a real reason we were here...

"Alright." Yui nodded with her smile now a tad strained, and I could tell she was wondering why we'd come here just as much I was a few minutes ago. "Guessing from your ages, you got together in college correct?" The therapist continued when met with two smiling nods, "When was the last time you had sex together, Ritsu-san?" Maybe it was the fact that she'd asked _me _particularly_, _or maybe it was the damn bluntness in her out-of-the-blue words, but I found myself simply gaping at Yui for close to half a minute before she chuckled and chose to alter her question. "When was the last time the two of you _made love_ to each other, then? You can answer together if you're shy..." I opened my frowning lips to confidently announce the answer, feeling a little pissed off by this brunette's antics.

"Two weeks."

"Over a month."

A… month…? A month? No way had it been that long! I turned to look at my lover with wide eyes, wordlessly asking her if she knew what she was saying. "It's okay, Ritsu. I don't really expect you to remember..." Her voice was soft, gentle even, but the poker face settled on her visage and the cruelty of her words sent a dagger through my heart. I silently stared at her, wondering how in Hell I'd managed to mistake such a thing, when Yui asked my wife why it'd been so long. "Oh, that one's easy." Mio answered without batting a lash, softly smiling at me as I gulped and wondered if she was really about to say what I thought she was...

"Her needs are being met elsewhere." There. She'd said it.

I didn't know when my eyes fell from hers to the floor, or when my hands started clutching at my chair's armrests, clammy with sweat. I couldn't even recall when a tennis ball decided to hop into my throat, refusing to be swallowed down. What I _did_ know, was that the words that broke the still silence were far from believable coming from my lips, "Baby, I told you." I started, turning my head to look back into my love's grey eyes, "It was business. And that's why–"

"–you were late." Mio completed, the gentle smile on her face starting to make me feel sick to the stomach, "I know, honey. You've told me that one before."

"Mio, just let me explain–"

"I always do, Ritsu." My wife interrupted, her smile slowly vanishing as she stared into my eyes with emotions I couldn't decipher. "I always do." She repeated, her gaze slowly falling to the floor. "Every time... Every. Single. Time."

"And how many times has it been already, Mio-san?" Yui chose to interrupt, and I caught her eyes narrowing and nose scrunching at me in disapproval and disgust. It seemed as though we both finally knew why my wife had brought me here in the first place. Too little too late on my part.

"I've lost count." Mio responded with a nonchalant shrug, answering as though asked about the number of UFO sightings that had occurred over the years. I audibly winced at the three painful words that had left her lips, cringing away in my seat and directing my sight to everything but her. "In fact..." The ravenette continued in a conversational tone, waiting for me to look her in the eyes again before delivering the final blow. "I'm quite sure Ritsu has too..."

_Don't..._

_ Don't do this to me, Mio._

"Mio, I _told_ you. What you saw that day wasn't what it looked like..." I repeated for what felt like the millionth time, ignoring Yui's warning of being honest with my wife. I _was _being honest.

"So you _weren't_ making out with your secretary? Is that what you're saying?" Mio asked for confirmation, bringing up the scene she'd interrupted almost three years ago. With narrowed eyes that resembled Yui's skeptical ones, my wife crossed her arms over her chest, daring me to come up with an answer.

"I... Mio, let's take this home, please?" I all but begged, wanting nothing more than to leave this office room for the comfort of our house.

"So that you can brush it off like you always do, Ritsu? HELL NO!" She was off her seat now – frowning lips shouting the last few words out at me – and calmed down only when Yui asked her to return to her chair and discuss this civilly. But discuss we didn't, and I stayed painfully silent until Mio finally decided to take things into her own hands again. "Answer me, Ritsu." She demanded in a whisper, her voice somehow managing to seem both fragile and strong, but when I opened my lips to respond to my only love, not a word seemed to come out.

"Tell me." Mio tried again, her voice a lot sharper this time around. "Say something, Ritsu. Tell me that you didn't kiss that woman; that I wasn't the interrupter that day, but the savior." Her voice turned harsher with every word, and I spotted a lone tear running down her cheek, but it was wiped away before I could make a move. "Tell me you haven't been sleeping with her ever since. Tell me she means nothing to you. And that those texts and pictures that... that _whore _sends you are all just spam!" The tears were running free now, and as I reached over to wipe them off her rosy cheeks, Mio slapped my hand away with eyes full of anger. "Tell me you haven't had more sex with her in the last four years than you've _ever_ had with me! Lie to me, Ritsu. You're so good at it already..." Her words were more like choked sobs now, but I could hardly see the expression she was making over the hazy curtain of my own building tears. "It's the only thing you know how to do anymore..."

"Mio. Mio, you're beautiful. I love you. I _love_ you, Mio." I clasped her hand and pulled it to my shaking body as small sobs started to escape. "You have to know that. Please."

"You didn't answer." The girl I was addressing replied softly, and I raised my chin from my chest to see that although her stream of tears still continued, she wasn't sobbing anymore. "Though it's not like I should have expected anything better..."

"Tsumugi and I are _nothing._" I managed to argue, letting out the words through pressed teeth, wanting so desperately for her to believe me... wanting desperately to believe it myself. "She's just my colleague, Mio. Nothing more."

"Your colleague _and_ your ex-girlfriend." Mio reminded me as she roughly pulled her hand away, hissing her words out through teeth more clenched than mine. But hers were clenched from anger rather than nervousness.

"And you're my _wife_!" I half-yelled through the tears, wanting more than anything to disappear, to let a hole just pop up on the 3rd floor of this building I was standing in and gulp me into its core. I couldn't deal with this... Not now, not ever. "You're my wife, Mio." I repeated much more softly, wrapping her fingers in mine again. "I proposed to you, I married you... I swore my life to you." I brought the hand holding our wedding ring to my lips, kissing it through the cascade of tears, "As long as we both shall live. Don't ever forget that..."

For a second I swore she would slap me, what with the way she tore her hand from my grip and brought it back for a blow. I would probably have accept it too if she were to go through with it. But the hand fell limp in her lap, and the lips that were about to angrily retort pressed themselves into a straight line. I sighed inwardly – not daring to let the sound escape – hoping that if mine were the last words uttered, she might choose to believe them. But there was a variable I mistook to ignore...

"No, Mio-san. Let the words out. Let your spouse hear them, it's much worse to keep them in." Whose fucking side was this therapist on?

Mio closed her eyes at those words, taking the lady's advice, and I could all but _feel_ her shaking.

"I can't." was all she said, the words directed at me with a defeated tone.

Feeling the tears taking over again, I asked if it was our marriage she couldn't bear. "No." She replied in no more than a whisper, her eyes opening at last to settle their thunderous depths into mine, "I can't feel it." She clarified with a little smile on her lips, like she was somehow amused by what she was saying. "It doesn't _feel _like I'm your wife, Ritsu. Not anymore." Fingers pressed to my lips before I could retort, and calloused thumbs wiped away some of my tears. "You know what I feel like I am?" Mio questioned tenderly, my face resting in her hands as I leaned into her touch more and more with every passing heartbeat.

"The most important person in my life?" I tried one last time. But it was all for naught when she shook her head lightly, smile still in place. As her hands left my face, I imagined them taking what was left of my heart along with them.

"I feel like a fool." She humorlessly chuckled as she ran fingers through her hair, and her self-deprecating laugh felt a hundred times worse that the slap I'd expected earlier. "And don't you try to deny it, Ritsu. I know you will. I don't really mind it… Love's a fool's game right?" Yui breathed a sigh under her breath at my wife's words, and I chanced a glance her way, noticing a head hopelessly held in hands. Is that what we were in the counselor's eyes? Hopeless?

"And the worst part is... for you, I could live forever as a fool." Mio continued, her voice starting to break as the words became harder and harder to say. The tear tracks running along both our cheeks deepened their marks as fresh salty liquid cascaded down their path. "No, I _have been _living as a fool." The ravenette corrected herself with another chuckle, "For the past four years, I... ever since the _moment_ you started seeing her..." My wife shook her head at me when I tried to explain, telling me she'd had enough. "It hurts, Ritsu. It's too much. It hurts when I see the love bites scattered all over your back; it hurts when you come home from work and smell like _her_. And when you sneak in late at night, sobbing to me and asking me to forgive you for things that should never have happened… it nearly kills me every time." I couldn't see her anymore; I couldn't see anything. The sobs that shook my body came with more force than tides crashing onto the side of a cliff, and even though I heard Mio walk up to me and lift my chin up to look her in the eyes, I couldn't see her through the tears in my eyes and the pain in my heart.

"When I visit your workplace to pass you lunch, and see you flirting with that woman like a horny teenager..." Mio hissed, and I felt her warm tears falling onto my face to slowly mingle with my own as she whispered her last words for me, "...I feel lower that the bed-sheets you _fuck_ her on."

When my wife dropped the fingers holding up my chin, my head immediately fell down to my chest, and the sobs worsened until it hurt to breathe. I knew I deserved it. I _deserved _Mio to leave me, to break me into a million pieces. For everything I'd done to her, I deserved that and so much more. But as I heard Mio excuse herself from the therapist without setting up another appointment, and felt more than heard the tip-tap of her high-heels making towards the door... When the first click of the lock finally met my ears, and the door squeaked open... I just couldn't take it anymore.

"Wait..." I slightly more than muttered, but it seemed to do the job when I heard the door halt its squeaking pattern. Rubbing as much visibility as I could into my eyes, I turned around to face my wife again, desperation evident in my voice as I tried to keep from losing my soul mate forever. "Let's... Let's go home together." I tried, my heart already shattered by the disgusted expression my lover wore. As I took a small step towards her, Mio just shook her head and sighed, bidding me farewell and closing the door to my face before I could utter a single response.

"'And Good Riddance' I'm sure she forgot to add." Yui muttered from a million miles away, offering not a word of comfort as my weary knees collapsed onto the tiled floor.

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I wondered what sunsets meant to people. Like this very sunset in front of me, one I'd been staring at from a secluded little lake bridge that separated the outskirts from town. For some people, sunsets like these were God's gift of encouragement: ending your day with a beautiful sight, so that you could look forward to those of tomorrow. To others, sunsets merely meant that it was time to leave the fields: signaling a time of rejoice, when after a day's hard work they could finally laugh with and kiss and hug their family. But right then... as I leaned against the bridge's railing with eyes weary from crying, they reminded me of something else entirely...

Wedding rings.

That beautiful gold band I'd slid on Mio's finger six years ago, how similar it looked to the sun's golden orange globe. So similar that, for a second, it was almost like the world was mocking me, reminding me that just half an hour ago my wife had shut the therapy room door to my face and chosen to ride the train back home. And just a second later, when I'd finally managed to purge wedding rings from my thoughts, the sunset took the fair color of a certain blonde's hair, reminding me of all the mistakes I'd made that had gotten me here...

"Hello, stranger." An alluring voice suddenly whispered against my ear, hugging me from behind. The same golden locks I'd been thinking about scattered themselves on my shoulder as the blonde's chin perched there, her grip on my waist tightening. "What're you doing alone on such a sweet Sunday evening?" She purred in my ear, smiling as she kissed it chastely. I shrugged in answer, not really caring enough to vocalize a proper response. "You _are _alone, right?" I felt the body behind me tense, and swiftly chance a glance from left to right as she searched for my other half.

"She's at home, Tsumugi." I sighed, leaning on the railing with her still attached to my back as I started playing with the wedding band on my ring finger. "I'm… alone." The unsaid truth behind my words suddenly hit me like a pile of bricks, and I made the mistake of letting a short dry sob leak from my throat.

"Ritsu?" Tsumugi's confused lips questioned in a concerned tone, laying a little kiss on the accessible part of my cheek as she brushed a hand under my eye to check for tears. "Are you alright, sugar?" She inquired as she let go of my waist, gently turning me around to face her starry blue eyes. "Your eyes are puffed up..." The blonde mused concernedly as she ran a finger along the bags under my eyes, slowly leaning forwards to brush her lips against them. "What happened, baby? Did you two get into a fight?" came the question, her intuition right on track as always. I swallowed back another sob as I nodded slowly in response, closing my eyes to get rid of the playback now going on in my mind. "You poor thing." Tsumugi cooed, oblivious to the fact that she was the reason the fight took place at all. Cupping my face in delicate hands, the woman kissed my nose in an attempt to make me feel better – an antic I used to try with her when we were dating back in high-school. Right now though, instead of alleviating my pain, the action just made me want to throw up in the lake beneath us.

"She found out... about us." I wanted to scream the words, but they came out as little more than whispers instead.

"Huh?" Tsumugi stopped centimeters from my lips, having already started her journey towards them a few seconds ago. The blonde moved back to furrow her brows, and asked me to repeat the words she'd missed, locking her arms around my neck and grinning up at me when I was done doing so. "After more than three damn years, eh?" She chuckled, seemingly unaffected by the reveal as she leaned towards my lips again, "That girl finally figured out her Prince Charming's _glorious_ ways..." Rose lips traveled closer and closer to mine, and her blue eyes pierced me more with every millimeter they came closer. We brushed lips, but the electricity that seemed to spark for her never came my way.

"Say…" Tsumugi trailed, noticing that I wasn't pushing her away, and taking it as encouragement as she traced her lips down my jaw. "You won't say no to my hickeys anymore, right?" The girl whispered hotly into my ear, but for the second time today, stimulation evaded me. "I always wanted to mark you somewhere she could see, for a change..." She kept going, brushing her lips across my pulse point but going no farther before whispering to me again. Five words that managed to elicit the first shiver down my spine: "To tell her you're _mine_..."

"Stop." My whisper seemed croaky all of a sudden, and that's when I first noticed the tears that had been silently overflowing down my cheeks. That was when she saw them too apparently, because Tsumugi backed up and kissed the liquid away, switching from her seductress to the sweet girl act without batting a lash.

"Sorry, hon'. That was too much PDA for you, wasn't it?" She smiled sweetly, wiping the rest of my tears away before planting a soft kiss on my temple. "Come on now, let me take your mind off that little cat you're housing." Tsumugi took my hand tightly in hers, leading me along the bridge with just enough force to steer my direction. I let her do what she wanted, and fresh tears ran down my cheeks when I gazed down at our intertwined hands, realizing that I'd already started cheating again on the love of my life behind her back...

"Your place or mine, Ricchan?"

_~Owari_

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**A/N: Erase those earlier comments about Ritsu being mine, Mio quite obviously doesn't like to share... **(though Mugi apparently does)

**Here's my check-list for this chappy:**

_**Break your OTP with infidelity: **_**Check. **(And hey, that rhymed!)_**  
Give your favorite girl the worst B-day present in the world: **_**Check**_**.  
Act like a total bitch in the process: **_**Check.**_**  
Make the readers hate you as much as you're hating yourself: **_**Unchecked. **(Believe me, I'm hurting twice as much as you are inside...)  
_**Have more than one anti-hero: **_**Check.** (From Ritsu's perspective: Mugi and Yui. From my perspective: Mugi and _Ritsu._)  
_**Feel the unquenchable desire to strangle a character… **_**Check **(Mugi's OOC home-wrecker self completely repulses me.)

**Ritsu: **_**You **_**completely repulse me.**

**Me: Wow, way to go to help me with the transition, Ricchan. And while we're at it, Happy 21****st****!**

**Ritsu: Yeah... **_**Great **_**present, by the way. Completely ruining my love life is _exactly_ what I wanted my fans to do for me.**

**Me: (shrugs) I figured, y'know… two heads are better than one. ;)**

**Ritsu: WHY YOU LITTLE–**

**And that concludes the Birthday girl interview! Now for my final thoughts:**

**Contrary to what my writing depicts, I wholly and completely _adore_ Mitsu. And I honestly feel like I just killed myself by writing this thing... but Hell – it needed to be done. **

**No, I haven't been in a bad mood **_**nor **_**did I let my personal life affect the plot of this 'present'… I simply needed to prove that sometimes, Birthdays **(and life in general)** aren't always all that forgiving and joyful. To some, birthdays remind them of something a lot more grave, like the death of a family member who passed away on that fateful day, or a break-up that was poorly and painfully timed… As for me, I use my Birthdays to look life in the eye and say "If I survived _this_ year of your God damned lemons, I can sure as Hell survive the rest!" **

**This one-shot was actually aimed to me quite a bit longer and much more morally challenging **(this portion only comprises of 14% of the entire plot I'd planned)** and had a much tidier ending, but I just ran out of time with a poorly expected writer's block. If you want me to continue with the story and portray just how Ritsu and Mio handle this situation **(because they _haven't_ split up... yet)**,** **then I'd be glad to keep writing "When Puzzle Pieces Fall Apart". I already have the scenes worded out in my mind; I just need to type them in time.**

**And as a final note on this story: Ritsu **_**does **_**love Mio, and quite a lot too. Although her feelings for Mugi still remain a mystery **(prospective TsuMiTsu?) **Ritsu does indeed (in the future, and currently) try her best to keep the marriage intact.**

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**So go ahead and review, fave and all that jazz.** (Man, I love Jazz.) **And let me know if you'd like a continuation of the one-shot. Heck, tell me if you'd want a happy ending or a sad one while you're at it **(though the ending's already settled beforehand, but _maybe…)_**_._ **

**And for the last time this year: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, RICCHAN! :* **(and happy birthday to me too, since mine just passed two days ago!)

**Hope y'all had a good time with my utter randomness,  
**_**~ScarletDrizzle**_


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